Movie Title Analysis

3.2 Translated movie titles

In some cases it is possible to translate a movie title word for word into a target language. Although it is a very common technique of translation it does not belong to the category of the simplest ones. While calquing the title we have to be aware of the fact that not in every case a calqued title would remain the same as the original one. In such case the adaption of the title into the target language is necessary, e.g. supposing that the English expression daily bread is a movie title and need to be translated into Eskimo. When translated directly, would not be understandable for Eskimos. In such a case we need to adapt the movie title into the target culture. Then, daily bread will be translated into Eskimo

Paul Edgecombe is a Death Row guard in Cold Mountain Penitentiary. One day when Paul is on duty, a black convict named John Coffey arrives on a death row. Accused of raping and killing two 9 year old girls and sentenced to death, shy and reticent black man sits quietly in the cell. By resurrecting a mouse and revealing guard’s urinary tract infection, Paul is not so sure about the sentence of a black prisoner. Even though the guard was trying to prevent from execution, the evidence was not convincing enough to find him innocent. John Coffey’s execution was a very dramatic scene in the film, because as it turned out, the blood on his shirt was due to the fact that he was trying to rescue them with his supernatural power, not kill them (S8).

The title of this movie is very meaningful. The Mile, precisely the last mile is a common name for the death row. The reason why the movie is called The Green Mile is that the floor in this row has green color. The technique which was chosen while translating this movie is a calque, and in this case it is the most appropriate option to mirror the message of the original title. While the term may be generally understood in the USA, it is not recognized by most Poles. It is then equivalent on the lexical level, but not necessarily on the socio-cultural

The main character, 8 year old Bruno, lives with his parents and his elder sister. They lead a wealthy life because the father is an SS Commander. The family needs to move out to a village where the father will be administrating the local prison. Children were forbidden to enter the backyard of the house. Lonely Bruno breaks the prohibition in order to look for some children to play with. He makes friends with a Jewish boy in striped pyjamas, named Shmuel. Bruno was too young to realize that talking with Jewish people during the war is banned. One day while playing with Shmuel, Bruno offered the Jewish boy a hand to find his dad whom he has not seen for couple of days. They dig a whole under fence and looked for Shmuel dad. In the final scene we can see that Bruno and Shmuel were obligated to take off their clothes and enter the gas chamber. When Bruno’s parents realized that he was gone and was at the area of Jewish prison, it was too late to rescue him because the gas was already inside the gas chamber (S9).

The title of the movie may be taken to symbolize firstly the Jewish boy Shmuel who is in the striped pyjamas, but also in the last scene we can observe that Bruno while entering the area of prison is given striped pyjamas in order not to differ from the rest of prisoners. It is a very tragic film showing that the desire to be wealthy has a very high price, sometimes even as high as the price of human